Paid for a licence. Held to ransom for my card. Support does nothing.
Bought a valid activation code. Already paid. Tried to activate it. Bitdefender then demands credit card details and a year of billing “or the software is void.”
That is not activation. That is a shakedown.
I did not buy an auto-renew subscription from them. I bought a code. Using the code I already paid for should finish the job. Instead they treat the product as incomplete until they get a card on file. A security company asking for extra financial data as the price of unlocking something you’ve already bought is a joke.
Support are not interested. No proper fix. No “activate the paid code without the card.” Just the same wall: hand over billing details or you don’t get what you paid for.
This is why people stop trusting antivirus brands. You sell “protect your data,” then you leak customer data (2015 breach, 2025 Romanian DPA fine for disclosing names and emails) and still have the nerve to demand a credit card before a paid key will work.
I will not give Bitdefender my card to unlock a licence I already purchased. I will not accept “void” as a threat. Until they activate paid codes without harvesting payment details, this is a company I would not recommend to anyone.
1/5 — and that’s only because 0 isn’t an option.
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